A few months ago my brother and I were watching netflix and he suggested we watch the tv show ‘Rick and Morty’ originally I was skeptical, as I thought it would be a boring cartoon knock off, and only agreed to watch it because it guest stars one of my favourite comedians John Oliver. However only a few episodes in my opinion had quickly changed. Rick and Morty narrates the crazy adventures of Rick, an alcoholic scientist who just happens to be the smartest creature in the known universe and Morty his naive grandson. Together they travel through infinite different dimensions with Rick’s portal gun and have crazy insane adventures doing everything from purging to intergalactic singing shows to drunk alien raves. In my speech today I’m going …show more content…
Scientist Rick instead of helpfully pointing Morty in the right principled direction at every moral crossroad, actively takes jab after jab at Morty’s moral compass until Morty is no more than a shivering wreck of flesh and bone. Rick, through quantum theory and complex theorems, pulls back the aging curtains of good and bad to reveal a chasm of neither, causing a moral crisis in the audience episode after episode. Episode six specifically - ‘Rick Potion number six’ where after a experiment went wrong Rick and Morty are forced to travel to alternative reality in order to replace a version of themselves which have just died in a lab explosion. Begging the question in a world made of infinite realities is it really possible to do wrong? Is it possible to do wrong when our lives are just infinite different versions of themselves? Is it possible to do wrong when our actions have no consequences? As Morty sees his own dead body lying mangled on the floor and his entrails spattered all over the walls. Morty comes to a realisation. A realisation of his own cosmic insignificance as he walks into his house and sits on down to watch …show more content…
The horror of residing in a vast unknown. The horror of residing in a vast unknown indifferent to our very existence. What if we live in a simulation run by Zigerian scammers? What if our soul purpose is to create electricity to power a greater being’s car battery? But instead of making us dread and fear the great unknown Rick and Morty makes us ridicule and mock it. So what if our very existence is pointless? So what if our actions don’t matter? “Nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody's gonna die” or as the great existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said “Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by
Rick and Morty is one of the very few shows that allow us to examine and question our own existence. On one hand,
Rick, a former sheriff, is now forced to break rules and laws that he once used to enforce before all hell broke loose. The Strain and Anomie theory, describes why Rick and his fellow survivors must result to a life of deviance. These theories are concerned with the internal and external pressures that drive people to crime and deviance. There are many external pressures within the show such as walkers and other bands of survivors trying to survive just like them. There are no moral institutions present anymore which results in a lack of moral direction. The institutions that once kept them in line are gone so they are now in a full state of normlessness. The only objective now is to survive, therefore, if that means violating social norms and committing acts such as murder and stealing, the characters will do whatever it
Many Christians rejected the philosophy of existentialism on the grounds that it denies “the reality and seriousness of human affairs” and that man will “be incapable… of condemning either the point of view or the action of anyone else.” (Sartre 1). Sartre denies this claim later in Existentialism is a Humanism by rejecting the misconception that an existentialist holds no conviction. Rather, he states, existentialists have the most conviction of anyone, because in “choosing for himself he chooses for all men.” (Sartre 4) Sartre claims this to be the “deeper meaning of existentialism.” It is the subjectivity of what is good or evil, the essence that man decides for himself, that has an impact on everyone else; within this subjectivity lies the responsibility for bettering mankind, a responsibility few men would choose to ignore.
Rick is one of the main characters shown in the Walking Dead. Rick is an individual who typically calm, smart, and a good friend. He will often stubbornly cling to his personal strong moral code, which has resulted in numerous bad calls and extra stress within the group. Rick 's greatest fault, perhaps, is his uncanny ability to place responsibility on himself and set for himself goals that are impossible to reach. This has, on various occasions, put Rick at ends with both Lori and Shane, and often weighs heavily on his mind. Despite his faults, his combat skill and general care for all members of the group have led him to be looked up to, and allowed him to take the leadership role within the group. Rick is strongly
The universe we inhabit is by all accounts an atypical one; a few people manage its foolishness by encompassing themselves with faith, while others disregard all its significance. Existentialism, nonetheless, ushers us down a remarkable course that darkens these perspectives toward one of a kind belief structure. Despite the fact that we can experience circumstances that are out of our control, we do have the ability to control how we manage said circumstances and regardless of whether we decide to create significance from them. The chase for our actual importance is primitive as are the answers that have maintained it throughout history. Certainly, life does not have an unmistakable settled intending to it; it is up to every person to find their own particular relative target and accomplish their own joy. This is absolutely what existentialism suggests, that it is not prone to know reality,
Do we matter? Will anything we do endure? These are questions from existentialism. The dictionary defines existentialism as "the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for his acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad" (Merriam Webster). In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Hamlet struggles with the concept that nothing from our lives last and time grinds everything away. Hamlet's major conflict was his existentialist view of the world.
Both Rick Grimes and his actions are moral and unselfish. Rather than being self-centered, Rick puts his life on the line to protect the group and his family with the best of his ability. The well-intentioned actions and selfless motives of Rick is evident in these three examples. In the early events of the zombie outbreak, Rick manages to escape the hospital and meets Morgan and his son Duane. After Duane mistakens Rick for a zombie and knocks him out with shovel, Morgan and him bring Rick to their shelter. Even though Rick is desperately concerned to locate his missing wife and son, he never forgets to return the favor. For a few more days, Rick stays with Morgan and Duane as he takes the two into the town's police department to use the showers and retrieve weapons and ammunition. Despite the overwhelming danger and his worried state, Rick is able to retain his good moral character to the people of of his neighborhood, like Morgan and Duane.
Living without purpose due to the inevitability of death adds strength to the idea of predestination. The universe continues forward with or without humanity. So it’s logical to assume we have no deeper meaning for being alive. In the book Watchmen, the Comedian addresses the pointlessness of morality in society
Bad things happen to all of us. It is an unavoidable feature of humanity. When we are born, we are born to suffer. So what if we had never been born? What if we had never been introduced into this world of inevitable hardship? Would we be better off? Such thoughts are entertained by David Benatar in his essay ‘Why it is Better Never to Come into Existence’ (Benatar, 1997)- who, rather unsettlingly for his readers, argues that it is rational to think that it is not better to exist than to have never come into existence.
The Merriam – Webster Dictionary defines existentialism as a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad (Merriam, 2011). In other words, an existentialist believes that our natures are the natures we make for ourselves, the meaning of our existence is that we just exist and there may or may not be a meaning for the existence, and we have to individually decide what is right or wrong and good or bad for ourselves. No one can answer any of those things for us. A good example of existentialism is Woody Allen’s movie, Deconstructing Harry. A man is haunted by his past and his past has followed him into the present. He is a wreck not because of the things that happened to him, but because of the choices he made. He is consumed by regret and insecurity and he tries to find blame in his situation with someone other than himself, however he cannot (Barnes, 2011). Throughout the rest of this paper I will be discussing two of the most prominent existentialists, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.
Man, by nature, is always searching for meaning. From the Atheistic approach, he must search for it without divinity. With divinity, only humanity and commonplace is present. Equipped only with everything – broad, yes, but accurate – man must content himself with what is available to him. This does not complicate things, nor make them trivial, it rather makes them quite simple. If your life has meaning, it is worth living. It is still meaning as it is still driving you forward and still causing you to better yourself, it just so happens that it is also commonplace. Existentialism thrives on the commonplace as it creates a system in which freedom of choice and abundancy of self-reliance is available. This is the true definition of subjectivism, though critics of Sartre will
The universe, and what it means to be alive is almost impossible to define; yet that does not stop humanity from trying. “Lonergan’s philosophy of the human person reveals that being human means having an unlimited number and variety of questions about life and the universe.” (Morgan, 1996). There is no limit on the number and variety of questions the human person will ask, "the most subversive people are those who ask questions” (Gaarder), as a result there are many varied and opinionated answers. This essay will explore three different theories on how one might find answers to life's ultimate questions. At one point or another, every human being has asked the question why: Why am I here? What is my purpose? What is the point? It is in our nature as human beings to reason, to think, to ask, it is what separates us from the rest of creation, and with this ability to reason, we are left with one question: Why? Throughout history many have tried to answer this question, some have come to the conclusion that meaning is found through God, and one’s faith. Others feel that life begins meaningless, and it is up to the individual to give life meaning; then there are those who believe that life has no meaning, and we are all essentially, just waiting to die, "The meaning of life is that it ends." (Kafka).
Throughout six seasons of AMC’s ongoing hit show The Walking Dead, Rick Grimes, the main protagonist, has grown from: a tough guy police officer with a soft heart for helping others (almost always coming with a great personal risk) to the ultimate leader and survivor. Rick’s character arc during the first five seasons of the show, were about the ongoing growth/development of Rick, along with little benchmarks along the way in the form of gruesome but necessary murder. During Rick’s character arc, he goes through three major phases that reflect his morals and view of the world. These changes are then highlighted by the various brutal gory kills Rick has achieved. We as viewers get an in depth look at this gradual evolution as he fights to survive
I existed.” Even if we never may understand or know it, we have changed something around us. Had we never existed at all, things that should have happened never would
I truly believe that every single person in the world has a purpose in life. God created each and every one of us for a reason. Whether we know it or not our life is planned and we follow a path throughout our life. In this path, we have the option to make good decisions or bad decisions. In order to achieve salvation and enter a virtuous after life we had to do deeds that had a positive impact on other people. In order to do this though, one must have the self-discipline and devotion to God. There are many obstacles that can get in the way of achieving this goal and the main one is our desires. Desire is a strong feeling of something we want or wish to have. Our desire negatively impacts our life because it detaches our body both physically and emotionally from our mind which then influences us to make morally wrong decisions.